I am loving all the new social networking software available these days and only wish I had more time to explore everything. I constantly get befriended on Facebook by all sorts of people from my school and my past; unfortunately, between classes, course work, work, family, and building a new home (yikes- managing the funds is a full-time job all in itself), I simply don't have time to play! This "Technology in the School Library Media Centre" course is the PERFECT excuse to spend hours playing around with all the softwares I've been dying to explore.
But one thing is nagging at me. I'm thinking back to an interview I had over a year ago with an elementary school principal re: a teacher-librarian job. I was pretty fresh to the MLIS program, and I was excited to share all these new technologies that have enlightened me during my studies! I went on about how I could collaborate with teachers by implementing wikis, and how I could introduce blogs in the library for students to post book reviews, etc. I even talked about improving the library website by connecting the catalogue online.
I didn't end up getting the job, and since I'm incredibly charming and qualified (ha ha), I'm wondering if it had anything to do with my espousal of technology! It's true that the schools in our district don't have huge budgets for computers and system upgrades. I did my practicum in a highschool that didn't allow any video-streaming or gaming simply because these applications were too draining on the system. But I think it goes further than this. My perception is that teachers and schools in general are scared of social software. Their educational potential is outweighed by the fear of a number of things: student distraction, online safety, and the big one: teachers' fear of learning about the stuff! I have great dreams about running workshops for teachers in the school library during lunch hours or after school. But realistically, between all the other tasks they juggle in their time management, and the "stigma" that these types of social software have in schools, I wonder if this would fly.
I do dream about the day when students are allowed access to their e-mails during school hours. I dream about the day when podcasts and video streams are integrated in lesson planning, to appeal to all different types of learners. I dream about the day when schools embrace technology, instead of finding ways to filter and block it from their students. This stuff ain't going away...
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It does seem that many teachers/admins are squeamish about how to interact with the ever interactable social software. I am still trying to figure out how to have it work in my school. It looks like we may have to do something inside the confines of "Moodle" next year, even though I'd like it to be on a larger scale than that.
The advice I've been given is that once you're in a school, find ONE teacher willing to take a risk and try something new like Blog Reviews or WikiSpaces...then it can spread to others once they hear about it through the grapevine. They also say to hit the new teachers, as they are not yet "set" in their ways. Sadly, many of the teachers I saw as possible "Library guinea pigs" left at the end of this year, and will not be back in the fall. So, who knows what will happen then.
Oh the neverending challenge of library relevance.
This is huge! I should say HUGE! Kate is right about finding one teacher and then letting the dominoes fall.
However, I think that to some extent there isn't time for that. When we don't allow/bring these tools into schools we are actually hindering students in their ability to work in the real-world. We are also missing huge (HUGE) opportunities to help educate teens about the positive uses of social networking.
Also, a lot of the tools you'll use this semester are free. The cost is of course in time. However, don't we have to consider the return on investment (ROI) if the time required to learn new technologies is taken? Isn't it an investment in making sure that students have access to and understand the best tools available for learning?
And, I bet if teachers took the time to investigate this "stuff" they would find that they can give up some things in order to integrate these new tools.
Rant (and rave) over.
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